Social Media

Google Tweaks Search Ranking Algorithm

Google's search algorithm underwent another little upgrade today. This time, the search giant tweaked its ranking algorithm to help more recent information zoom to the top of search results.

The change, which will affect about 35% of searches, is designed for queries about recurring events, recent activity in the news and frequent updates. Writing in The Official Google Blog, Google fellow Amit Singhal outlined how each of those categories would be affected by the change.

A recurring event, for example, might be the Olympics. "If I search for [olympics], I probably want information about next summer’s upcoming Olympics, not the 1900 Summer Olympics," Singhal writes. A "freshness algorithm" will ensure that Summer 2012 Olympics results float to the top. As for recent events, a search for "Occupy Oakland Protest" would yield the latest news. "You'll see more high-quality pages that might only be minutes old," he writes. Frequent updates refers to things that aren't a hot topic or a recurring event, but nevertheless change often. For instance, a search for "slr cameras" should produce only the most-recent models.

The latest tweak builds on a Google initiative called Caffeine that provided 50% fresher results for searches than Google's previous index. The reason? As Carrie Grimes, a Google software engineer, outlined in a December 2010 blog post about the completion of Caffeine, "People's expectations for search are higher than they used to be. Searchers want to find the latest relevant content and publishers expect to be found the instant they publish."

Given Google's dominance in search, any change to its algorithm will be closely watched. The company's last major change, Panda back in February, diminished the impact of content farms and gave Google's YouTube higher visibility. Google, however, updates its algorithm 500 to 600 times a year, according to SEOMoz, and tends to announce major tweaks every few months or so.

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